EMDR Therapy
EMDR (eye-movement desensitization and reprocessing) therapy focuses on trauma. Developed in the late 1980s, EMDR uses bilateral stimulation (like eye movements, auditory tones, or tactile pulses) to help the nervous system integrate and metabolize lots of information very quickly. In essence, it jump-starts your brain, and entire body really, to stitch together many, many fragmented pieces of trauma memory.
Why does this help?
First, disturbing things happen to all of us. We don’t always think we’ve been traumatized – in fact, we often downplay our feelings about negative events. But if something sticks with us, triggers negative beliefs about ourselves (e.g., “I’m a failure”), there’s some level of trauma there. But that sort of memory (e.g., “what happened that night”) doesn’t always get stored like everyday memory. It’s often splattered throughout the nervous system in the form of anxiety, anger, shame, and thoughts about ourselves that feel miserable.
EMDR takes these splattered bits of memory and pulls them into a coherent whole. Quickly . . . Sometimes before a client even realizes it. When bits of trauma, like thoughts and emotions, are integrated in this way, they lose their power to make us panic or hate ourselves – the anxiety drops out of them and the memories can simply be filed away.
EMDR is a whole-body process, yet is non-invasive and gentle. And EMDR can be used to treat everything from panic attacks to relationship problems. I even use it to help students, professionals, and artists do better at the things they love to do.
EMDR THERAPY BLOGS
Transition and EMDR: No such thing as a wrong turn.
Spring brings rebirth and color and joy. It also brings pollen, tornadoes, and allergies. My life transitions like the seasons, and even though it scares the crap out of me, I know it’s a good thing. Something gets stale, stuck, or sour and I know it’s time to...
Ready to Receive: A Valentine’s Mindset
I just learned something: getting more of what we want happens when we shift into the right mindset to receive . . . Receiving Mode. We want intimacy, creativity, close friendships, satisfying work, a healthy family . . . a healthy community, nation, and world....
Be More Self-Centered and Save the World
What does it mean to be self centered? Your Self is your wise spiritual center. But outside this center, we live under a weighted blanket of stress and uncertainty, threatened by darkness and greed from all angles. We feel disconnected from neighbors and afraid of...
Transform Holiday Stress into Mindful Rest & Giving
Until recently, I resented the holidays. As in, Already???? We just did this, right? Except the years when my son believed in Santa and we put together tricycles and trains, after his bedtime, under the synthetic Douglas Fir, I got a sinking anxious dread just before...
Once Upon a Time: Repression and Learning to Say No
Repression: I once knew what this was and then I forgot. Last weekend, I attended the EMDRIA conference in Minneapolis where physician, Gabor Maté, spoke about the connections between trauma, emotional repression, and disease. He told the story of his Jewish infant...
Notice Body-Mind Connections and Heal from Trauma
I used to fall a lot. On the sidewalk. In my yard. Up a flight of marble stairs. About seven years ago, after a string of bizarre falls where I ended up with scars on my shins and a pulled muscle in my back, I followed the trail of breadcrumbs and made a body-mind...
Find Your G-Spot: Healthy versus Coercive Guilt
My clients report LOTS of guilt. Guilt over everything . . . being a rebellious teen (thirty years ago) . . . failing to protect their children from unforeseen tragedies . . . eating desserts . . . not living up to their potential . . . breaking someone’s heart...
EMDR can help you Achieve: Be a better athlete, singer, or cowgirl.
We all want to achieve something. When I was eight, I wanted to be a cowgirl. This never happened, but if it had, I imagine EMDR would help me achieve my team roping goals and stay fit for the arena. EMDR therapy helps people recover from trauma, relationship stress,...
How to Know when it’s Time to Say Goodbye
I have trouble letting go. Mostly when it comes to saying goodbye to unbalanced relationships. You know, the kind where you feel you should be helpful but no amount of help seems to make a difference? So here are some thoughts about change and letting go of what no...
I Must be a Bad Person: Recovering from Religious Abuse
Something tells me I'm a very bad person. Under the bridge.....beneath, “It’s my fault,” lives a more troubling idea...It hides in us like a troll under a bridge. Anyone who's survived religious abuse knows the old thought-training dies hard. Jim teaches art to...
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